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Friday, August 29, 2014

#74: How Microtransactions Ruined Dead Space 3

Last
week, I detailed many of my thoughts on the distressingly awful Dead
Space 3. I had discussed my complaints regarding the combat, the
co-op, and the story of the game. What I neglected to talk about was
the microtransactions and their negative influence on the game. My
thoughts on this particular subject are so intense that I feel that
their inclusion in last week's post would detract from my complaints
in it, making that piece far too long of a read. It is actually
surprising just how deeply the mere inclusion of microtransactions
fundamentally altered the game's core design.

This is
because the actual microtransactions by themselves seem initially to
be incredibly innocuous. Using either real world money or Ration
Seals acquired through scavenging, players can purchase resources
from the game to help give them an edge over the space zombies. The
problem arises in that there was not much to purchase with them.
Buying health and/or ammo would be far too blatant and obviously
impact the game design. So something needed to be created in order to
give users something to purchase. For this reason, the weapon
crafting was added to the game.

Weapon
crafting is exactly what it sounds like. Throughout the game, players
collect weapon frames, cores, muzzles, attachments, and upgrade
circuitry as they progress. When they reach a bench, they can use
these collected parts to create custom weaponry or modify existing
weaponry. If the player should wish to acquire more of a specific
part, but do not have the time or desire to search the game world for
it, they can use collected resources such as Tungsten,
Superconductors, Scrap Metal, and the like to craft those parts. Now,
should they lack even these basic resources, Ration Seals or real
world money can be spent acquiring them. Again, this is fairly
innocuous addition in and of itself. In fact, there is even some
entertainment value in creating awesome weaponry to use against space
zombies.

Unfortunately,
it also came with some unintended side effects. The first such effect
is that horror element has been eliminated from the game. Even in the
early half of the game, it is entirely possible for players to create
weaponry with maxed out damage ratings. The shotgun I had created
that early lasted me for the entire game, up to the final boss.
Nothing was scary, because nothing stood a chance against me. My
partner and I died fairly infrequently outside of set-pieces, and
neither one of us felt even a tinge of fear. Considering how scary
the earlier games were reported to be, that is more than a little
disappointing.

The
other side effect is that the developers can no longer be sure of
exactly what type of weapon(s) the player has in their inventory. For
what I have been told, earlier Dead Space games gave players specific
weaponry over the course of the game, slowly building up their
arsenal. The designers can use this information to carefully control
which ammo is dropped where and how often in order get the player to
naturally switch up tactics based on what their current ammo count is
for each weapon. In the third game of the franchise, this can no
longer work. Since Visceral Games are not sure of what weapons
players are using, they cannot drop ammunition for specific weapons
to encourage use of them. As a result, ammo had to be universal,
working for every weapon. That way, no matter what equipment is being
used at a given point in the game, the risk that the player is put
into an unwinnable state is significantly lessened.

And that
decision, which was a side effect of our first big change, has
another side effect associated with it. Since every weapon consumes
the same resource when firing it, there is no way to incentivize much
needed variety. Every person I know that has played Dead Space 3 made
one really powerful weapon in the beginning of the game and generally
stuck with it. Although there were other options like new weapons,
kinesis, and stasis available to them, they all just chose to keep
firing with their weapon of choice. Every fight feels the same
because the same weapons are being used over and over again against
enemies who use the same tactics. No variety can be added in the
natural way it used to be because the tools to do so no longer exist.
Furthermore, since all ammo works for all weapons, it is no longer a
scarce resource. In fact, I never once ran out of it throughout my
entire playthrough and my partner ran out exactly once.

To
recap, it started with a simple request: Add microtransactions to the
next Dead Space game. From that one event, a ripple effect occurred.
The side effects from this one simple addition multiplied, affected
the overall game. As a result, the combat and overall pace of the
game was severely impacted. Without the necessary tools to control
variety and space, the developers lost their ability to fine tune the
gaming experience in the way they could in the first two Dead Space
games, judging from what I have been told by franchise fans. Taking
away the excellent pacing results in poorly executed combat and the
inability to really provoke any form of horror.

Nothing
in a game exists in a vacuum. Every single aspect, no matter how
small, affects every other aspect. Despite what many would like you
to believe, this is no less true with regards to microtransactions.
For a game to become great, every system has to keep into each other
in perfect harmony. This is what few publishers realize. It is
impossible to just add “one small thing” without affecting the
balance that was already there. Careful consideration is necessary.
If there is anything I would have you, the reader, take away from my
experiences in Dead Space 3, that would be it.